On Philosophy, Common Sense, Transformation

I'm really excited about one of the textbooks I'm using this semester (Louis Pojman's, Philosophy: The Pursuit of Wisdom, 5/e). In his first chapter he tackles the question, "What is Philosophy?" No small potatoes there. On the second page of the chapter, he quotes Bertrand Russell, who says:

The [person] who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason...While diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, [philosophy] greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive the sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar light.

This passage perfectly captures what it is to teach philosophy and be transformed by it. However, the transformee must be open and willing to -- as Dr. Gordon Lewis is famous for saying -- follow the truth wherever it leads. It wasn't clear how much of a prima facie risk this "following the truth is" for those just walking in to a philosophy class. It's easy for me to champion that cause and talk about it during the first week of class, but it is another thing to draw students through that process and do so continuously over sixteen weeks. Furthermore, being enthusiastic about the ideas and helpful dispositions of philosophy is only good if people are willing to go along. Yet another reason why sometimes teaching philosophy is like selling something. It's still hard to tell who is buying.

There's an interesting move occurring now that I am a moderately-established adjunct that involves groups of us turning into groups of colleagues, and my group includes one full-time faculty member (the one who happened to evaluate me last semester) as well. We visit in the morning, sharing our woes and frustrations about early-morning students, the bookstore somehow managing to screw up a crucial book order, and the overall ridiculousness of text-messagers and sleeping students. (If you're tired and have difficulty getting out of bed, why -- pray tell -- did you sign up for a 7:00am class?)